S Shuttle

S Castro Shuttle rollsign on a game-day extra train in 2007.

An S Shuttle train crossing over near West Portal station in 2017.

After the installation of automatic train control in 1998, the maximum Muni Metro frequency through the Market Street subway doubled from 24 trains per hour to 48. Muni needed to increase capacity to accommodate growing ridership, but the aging Boeing LRV fleet and issues with the new Breda fleet left too few vehicles to run additional service on the branch lines. Instead, Muni introduced the S Castro Shuttle, which could relieve crowding at busy Castro station while using only a small amount of rolling stock. The service began on April 2, 2001, running only at rush hour on weekdays, with headways between 7 and 12 minutes.[2]

A variety of service changes took place with the introduction of full service on the T Third Street line on April 7, 2007. The new line was routed through the subway to Castro station, replacing the S Castro Shuttle; changes were also made to the J Church, N Judah, and several bus lines.[3] (The S Castro Shuttle designation continued to be used for extra service to AT&T Park on San Francisco Giants game days.) The changes were unpopular with the public; the Muni Metro changes caused severe delays in the Market Street subway, and forced many riders to transfer to reach the Caltrain station when they previously did not. On June 30, 2007, Muni reversed several of the changes. The J, N, and S were restored to their previous routes, while the T was interlined with the K Ingleside line.[4] The revived shuttle ran on 10-minute headways using three trains.[5][6]

On October 4, 2013, Muni began a pilot of S Shuttle service, which included the first three-car train on Muni Metro since the 1990s.[7] The three-car train and a two-car train ran between Embarcadero and St. Francis Circle station with only six morning round trips and one evening round trip; the last morning trips ran through to 23rd Street on their way to the Muni Metro East facility.[8] However, the three-car set proved unreliable, and perennial rolling stock shortages caused the shuttles to be frequently cancelled in favor of branch line service.[9]

On November 7, 2016, Muni changed the service to a pair of single-car trains running between West Portal station and Embarcadero. The revamped service, which was modeled after similar Hillway shuttles on the N Judah line, ran during weekday morning rush hours.[10] Although it nominally switched back at West Portal, service often instead used a more reliable crossover at Taraval and 19th Avenue station. By 2019, the SFMTA described the S Shuttle as an irregular route meant to supplement other Muni services.[11]

On March 30, 2020, Muni Metro service was replaced with buses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[12] Rail service returned on August 22, with the routes reconfigured to improve reliability in the subway. S Shuttle service frequency was increased, as three other lines no longer entered the subway; two- and three-car trains operated between West Portal and Embarcadero on 6–9 minute headways.[1] Rail service was re-replaced with buses on August 25 due to issues with malfunctioning overhead wire splices and the need to quarantine control center staff after a COVID-19 case.[13] K/T and N subway service resumed on May 15, 2021, with S Shuttle service operated to supplement.[14][15]

Since T Third Street service moved to the Central Subway in January 2023, shuttle trains signed "S Chase Center" operate between Chinatown and UCSF/Chase Center for events at Chase Center.[16]

Media related to S Shuttle at Wikimedia Commons

• SFMTA – S Shuttle